FMC and Femtocell Equipment Forecast to Hit $7.4 Billion in 2013

­Sales of FMC network element equipment and femtocell equipment will grow to $7.4 billion worldwide by 2013, forecasts Infonetics Research. They also report that the number of 2G and 3G femtocells sold for use in mobile networks will increase five-fold from 2009 to 2010.

"So far, we have found no evidence of the economic downturn having a major impact on the pace of FMC rollouts, and it has had only a mild effect on the femtocell space. In the first half of 2009, we saw unabated UMA rollouts at T-Mobile USA, Orange, and Rogers Wireless in Canada, with Turk Telekom joining the bandwagon more recently," notes Stéphane Téral, principal analyst for mobile and FMC infrastructure at Infonetics Research.

"As for the femtocell market, the lack of a clearly defined business model is persuading some service providers to postpone launching femtocell services until the market recovers, while others are moving forward. AT&T is the first operator in the US to launch 3G femtocell services to improve indoor voice and data coverage, and Verizon and Vodafone also have launched commercial femtocell services. We expect at least a dozen major operators to launch in 2010, giving this market a kick-start," explains Richard Webb, directing analyst for WiMAX, microwave, and mobile devices at Infonetics Research.

The report also said that Nokia increased its lead in the massive dual service phone market in two consecutive quarters, with over a third of worldwide revenue in 2Q09. In the very tight race for second position in the worldwide dual mode service phone market, Samsung, Apple, and HTC are within one or two percentage points of each other.

Worldwide manufacturer revenue from dual mode cellular and Wi-Fi phones dropped 29% in the first half of 2009 compared to the previous six months, as the recession bit into the mobile phone market.

Posted to the site on 16th October 2009